So, Ray got up at 4:30 am and then again at 7:30 am and desperately needs a nap but he can’t get himself to fall asleep. I just put him down again, it’s 10 am, but I already tried at 9 am and that was unsuccessful…. so I am basically waiting. He’s crying right now but I have about 10 minutes to kill waiting to see if this nap “takes”. If it doesn’t, it’s back to the drawing board – and such is my life.
I have noticed a few things lately that I want to document:
– it seems as though Ray was one too many people to add to our prayers. Now, when Noah and Liam ask Heavenly Father to bless our family members, they get all confused and it goes something like this, “Please bless Daddy and Noah and mommy and … Ray …. and Noah … and Liam and daddy …. (long pause) …. and thank you for …” and the prayer continues. But 5 people to bless just pushed the memory capacity over its limit and so several people get blessed twice and some not at all. It’s funny.
– Liam says “candy cans” instead of “candy canes”. It’s adorable. I’ve corrected him several times, but it doesn’t seem to matter. oh well. Not going to try too hard to correct that one. It’s cute.
– two nights ago I added something different to our dinner table. I had hosted bookclub the night before so I had special food in the house. So I put together a plate of sliced pears with brie on top and drizzled it with some good balsamic vinegar. I put it on the table and Noah looked at it and said in a straight tone, “well, THAT’s really something”.
Things are not bad around here … dare I say “good”? This Christmas season is shaping up nicely. Last year I hated it. Super busy – I was in charge of the ward Christmas party, I was 3 months pregnant, and there seemed to be no time for the stuff that really matters. This year feels better and we’ve done some good things. I’ll blog about that later … new Christmas traditions, but right now, my ten minutes is almost up and Ray has just hit a new level of desperate in his voice. I want to whine a bit.
I know I should be super grateful, but this morning I wasn’t. I don’t really feel relaxed much these days and I miss quiet. I woke up at 4:30 to Ray crying and then at 7:30 am I woke up to Noah coughing. So now everyone is home from school and I get to care for hyperactive sick kids. It sounds like an oxymoron right? Hyperactive and sick? Well, with Noah, it’s not. They go hand in hand. He rarely slows down. Ray is screaming, Noah is coughing, Liam hasn’t done his chores and I should be getting after him to do it, dishes need to be done, I haven’t worked out in a month, I need to shower ….. and all I want to do is go to my bed and take a midmorning nap. Quietly. Which wouldn’t be able to happen in THIS house …. so I’d have to transport my bed to an alternate universe somewhere, where I don’t have sick kids or responsibilities or a fat tire around my middle.
And I think, “Am I really going to miss this stage of life?” Why do older adults always tell me I’m going to miss this? I kind of hate that. Am I really going to miss nursing? That is something I have never found to be wonderful. Not bonding, not calming, not comfortable ….. nursing Ray is very similar to what nursing Noah was like: they have this way of gnawing at me like I’ve seen dogs gnaw at their chew toys. They both do this thing where they latch on hard with their gums, pull back with their heads and punch their little fists into my breast to really stretch me to my fullest. With that kind of action, it’s no wonder I have stretch marks and my boobs hang near my waist. seriously. And I’ve never been able to fall asleep while nursing them, it’s painful, partly because of the stretching thing they do and partly because they nurse pretty fast. Done in about 5 to 10 minutes, then we switch sides, so no real relaxing, long, warm, bonding nursing time – it’s always fast, furious and painful. Will I miss that? Will I miss sickness that HAS to run it’s course through everyone in the house at separate times so that sickness is in your house for at least a solid month? Will I miss that? Or how about the constant companionship of dishes and laundry needing to be done. A real and constant threat that we won’t have dishes to eat off of or underwear and pants to wear everyday? Miss that??
OK, done whining. Now I’m going to try and bury this post in a bunch of positive and happy ones so as not to be a downer…. but seriously. Sometimes it would be soooooo nice to wake up to a completely silent house…. and not in a eerie and frightening way, like everyone must be dead kind of way, but in an “oh look, it seems as though my children are just healthfully sleeping until 10 am today” kind of way. Is that even possible? I wish. Well, Ray stopped screaming. Blogging works! I would’ve gone and gotten him had it not been for something to distract me and allow me to whine!! Ha!